Posts Tagged ‘christmas’

Did your kids make you a holiday card? Did they perhaps make cards for their best friends too? If they were really industrious, they might have made one for each of their classmates. No matter what, however, if Stephen Goodman reaches his goal, your kids will look like real slackers in comparison. His plan is to send a holiday card to members of the U.S. Military actively deployed overseas. All of them.

Sure, this time of year, everyone goes on and on about The Christmas Story and “you’ll shoot your eye out”, but I’m not sure that younger kids really get that movie. Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are far too violent and The Ref, while one of my favorite holiday films, is certainly not suitable for kids unless you want them to be able to hold their own with Uncle “Foul-Mouth” Phil. So what are good movies for kids this time of year? Here are the ones I came up with:

Many years ago, before I had kids of my own, I used to take my niece, then about 6 or 7 years old, Christmas shopping. I gave her a modest budget and let her pick out gifts for her brother, her parents and grandparents, and my wife. We’d get half a dozen presents and spend about twenty dollars or so. Fast forward about ten years and she’s quite capable of doing her own holiday shopping.

As we gather with friends, exchanging gifts and good tidings, sharing a communal meal, and basking in the warm comfort of holiday lights and decorations, it’s important to make sure that kids understand the “reason for the season.” If you’re not sure how to best explain it to your kids, there is help available.

When I was growing up, toy guns were strictly forbidden in our house and we were not even supposed to play with them elsewhere. While I didn’t like that policy as a kid, now that I am a parent myself, I have the same rule in place for my children. I don’t think guns are an appropriate toy for kids to play with and I don’t think I’m alone. So what sort of donated toys do you suppose the Salvation Army destroys rather than see end up in the hands of children?

One of the reasons people go back to Disneyland and Disney World over and over again is that they’re always changing. There is always something new to see, especially around various holidays. This year, in the Grand Canyon Concourse of Disney World’s Contemporary Resort in Florida there is a 17-foot tall gingerbread tree. Not a wooden tree that just kinda looks like it’s made of gingerbread but a real, honest-to-yummy-goodness gingerbread tree.

I remember, from my childhood, going out into the woods with my parents, finding the perfect tree, and cutting it down to bring home. We did that once. That was far too rough and rugged for my parents — their idea of roughing it was Opera in the Park. So they bought a plastic tree with little plastic bunches of green pine needles that kept falling off the brown plastic branches and we never had a real tree again.

I think I’ve finally learned not to begin doing something unless I am willing to keep doing that same thing for the rest of my life. About 7 or 8 years ago, I started a tradition that has me staying up late at night, working all weekend, and generally running around like a chicken with its head cut off. A very stressed out headless chicken. And yet, I keep doing the same thing every year — because my in-laws say it’s the best gift they get.

Remember way back when, when kids actually made ornaments to decorate the tree this time of year? In my day, we strung popcorn on thread and made chains of brightly colored paper rings. There were the clay ornaments brought home from school shaped and colored by each child’s hand along with cut-out and colored paper snowflakes and macaroni-and-too-much-glue works of art. Perhaps it is, once again, time to restore crafts and art to das tannenbaum. After seeing this tree, I think I’m sold.